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Smiling  group of  businesspeople discussing.
Smiling group of businesspeople discussing.

BooksMarch 15, 2017

We cross live to the launch of the Auckland Writers Festival

Smiling  group of  businesspeople discussing.
Smiling group of businesspeople discussing.

A lawyer has run amok at the Auckland Art Gallery at the launch of the Auckland Writers Festival. The Spinoff Review of Books was there.

A glass of red wine was spilled on a guest wearing an A-line Trelise Cooper pattern dress, quite ruining it, at tonight’s launch of the Auckland Writers Festival at the Auckland Art Gallery.

“Fuck,” said the woman.

“Quick, soak it,” said her friend.

“It’s too late,” said the distraught guest.

“No. Come on. I’ll go with you to the ladies.”

“What’s the point? It’s fucking ruined. Who was it that bumped my arm? Did you see who did this?”

“No.”

“I think it was that guy over there.”

“What guy?”

“The one in the black suit and yellow shirt.”

“I know him.”

“What’s his name?”

“I can’t remember. His wife left him.”

“No wonder.”

“She took him to the cleaners. He lives in Kingsland now.”

“Serves him right.”

“He’s a lawyer. He acts for Kim Dotcom.”

“Is that Eleanor Catton?”

“Where?”

“There.”

“No. But there’s Jesse Mulligan.”

“No it isn’t.”

“There was something in the paper today about Eleanor Catton’s next book.”

“I still haven’t read The Luminaries.”

“Neither have I.”

“So why did she leave him? The lawyer.”

“Maybe she ran off with Kim Dotcom.”

“Is that Ashleigh Young?”

“No.”

“I’ve ordered her book.”

“So have I. Is it a novel?”

“I think so.”

“Look at him,” said the woman in the ruined dress. “That fucking lawyer. He’s drunk.”

“Oh my God.”

“What?”

“There’s his wife. She’s here. And he’s walking towards her.”

“Where? Which one is she?”

“The one in the Trelise Cooper dress.”

 

Chris Kraus, Paul Beatty, Lauren Child, and Susan Faludi (Images: Supplied)

Writers who will appear at the festival include Man Booker winner Paul Beatty, Lauren Child of Charlie & Lola fame, satirist Armando Iannucci (in a one-off event ahead of the festival on April 29), journalist John Lanchester, food writer Jay Rayner, crime writer Ian Rankin, feminist author Susan Faludi, Chris Kraus, Teju Cole, Anne Enright, AN Wilson, and many others; the Spinoff Review of Books wishes to remark that it is by far the most inventive and brilliant line-up of international writers since the festival began. Huzzah!

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